If a high school has sent zero graduates to the Harvard University and 20,000 graduates to the local community college, it is fair to wager that this year’s graduates will not attend Harvard. If one teacher gives only As and another teacher only gives Cs, it is rational for students to expect an A from teacher one.

Educational leaders knew big data was coming. Foresight of larger data sets ushered in the data-driven decision-making movement that swept through educational leadership circles a few years ago. Schools held team meetings to review data on attendance, grade distributions, discipline trends, test validity and extra-curricular participation. Occasionally the data sets were not sufficiently large to provoke a compelling case for change, but they often did.

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